Use A Microsoft Account

The key to Microsoft’s plan is getting people to log into their PCs with a Microsoft accountHow Microsoft Overhauled User Accounts In Windows 8How Microsoft Overhauled User Accounts In Windows 8What's up with user accounts in Windows 8? It's not complicated - Microsoft wants everyone to use an online account to sign into their desktop operating system. Sure, they offer an offline equivalent, but they...Read More. Microsoft encourages you to do this by default — you have to click a few extra links to log in with a local account. When you set up your PC or create a new account, just log in with your existing Microsoft account or create a new one. You can convert a local account to a Microsoft account in the PC Settings app on the Accounts > Your account screen.

When you want to log into another PC, open the PC settings app, navigate to Accounts > Other accounts, select Add an account, and add your Microsoft account. You can’t just sit down at any PC and log in with your Microsoft account — you need the PC’s owner to add you to the system, giving you permission to use their hardware.

Desktop Settings

Windows 8 and 8.1 will move many desktop settings between your PCs by default. This includes cosmetic settings like your desktop background, lock screen image, account pictures, colors, the tiles on your Start screen, and their layout. It also works for desktop settings for the File Explorer, mouse, keyboards, printers, input methods, languages, and ease-of-access tools. These settings are synced between the computers you log in with — so when you change one on one PC, it will also be changed on your other PCs.

To adjust these settings, open the Change PC settings app — press Windows Key + C or swipe in from the right to access the charms bar, tap or click Settings, and select. Change PC settings. Navigate to OneDrive > Sync settings to check and configure these settings.

Files

Microsoft also wants your files to follow you across your PCs, which is why OneDrive is integrated into Windows 8.1’s desktop. OneDrive provides a special folder you can access in the File Explorer and use from any desktop application. Drop your files in here and they’ll be uploaded to your online OneDrive storage. You can then sign in on any other Windows PC and all your files will be right there under OneDrive. You can also access them via the OneDrive website or mobile apps, of course.

It’s like Dropbox or Google Drive, but integrated into the operating system. It’s actually even more intelligent — rather than downloading all your files to your current PC, OneDrive will download files on-demand as you open them. This means you can store a huge amount of files in your OneDrive without worrying about syncing them to each PC you use.

Photos and Videos

Photos and videos are also synced to OneDrive, although this works a bit differently. Photos under your Pictures > Camera Roll folder will be synced automatically. You can adjust the upload settings under OneDrive > Camera roll in PC settings.

The reason for using a different folder with different settings is so OneDrive can automatically adjust the quality, if you like. You could dump all the photos you take in your Camera Roll folder and have OneDrive automatically compress them to a good size and upload them for backing up without fiddling with any of this on your own.

Applications

Microsoft’s vision is coming together more slowly around applications. For now, applications you install from the Windows Store will be synced between your Windows devices. These settings are controlled under OneDrive > Sync settings in Change PC settings, too.

The problem is you probably don’t use those “Store apps” on your PC. Because of the way desktop applications work, they can’t be synced between your devices. (However, you could get around this a little bit by using portable desktop applications and placing them in your OneDrive folder.)

In the long run, Microsoft wants to encourage us all to use these Store apps. That’s why they’re adding the ability to run these apps in windows on a desktop. Your applications will then follow you from PC to tablet to PC.

Microsoft’s Vision

You can still use Windows 8.1 like old versions of Windows. You could log in with a local account, disable access to OneDrive, and use only desktop applications. In this case, none of your settings, files, or applications would follow you from PC to PC. This only works if you’re willing to buy into Microsoft’s vision of the future.

It’s similar to what Chrome offers with browser sync and Chrome apps, or what every online service offers with the ability to access your data on the web from any PC or with an app on any mobile device. Microsoft is catching up to the times — it’s a shame desktop applications still seem stuck in the past.

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Dan Shelby

June 2, 2014 at 4:33 pm

I have both a Windows 7 and 8.1 computer. On advice, I downloaded the onedrive app to the Windows 7 computer, signed in using my Microsoft login and password and files recently updated on the 8.1 computer were available. I then updated one file and shut down the W7 computer. I then went to the W8.1 computer and signed on. The file I updated on W7 was not changed. I think I know the answer but need help with it. While I have a Microsoft account and password on the W8.1, my normal sign-on is with the same login name but a different password. I believe if I had signed in with the MicroSoft password then the file would have been updated on W8.1. Should I create a new account on W8.1, make it the administrator, then delete the old administrator account, then make a new account using the MicroSoft onedrive login and password? Or, is there an easier way? Thanks to Tina S for the earlier advice!

I have 2 computers, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. On the 8.1 computer most of my files are stored in the onedrive folder or section. I have been going to the W7 computer and going to onedrive, signing in with my Microsoft E-Mail Name and password, and then downloading all recently updated files -- then moving the downloaded files to the W7 computer. Since this is cumbersome, it would be nice to sync the 2 computers. So, using what I derived from the above, I went to the W7 computer, added an account (let's call it Charlie which is not my microsoft e-mail name) and I gave the new account my microsoft password which it accepted. It then took a short while and established files for the new account. I then changed users to the newly added account and could not locate onedrive folder or section in the file explorer. Did I do anything right? What went wrong?

This is one of the reasons I love W8. I have used this function on multiple computers. Everytime I hear people refusing to use an MS account to log onto Windows 8 and refuse to do it anyway but the old way with a local account, I shake my head. No wonder these people hate windows 8. They refuse to use the best parts.

There is very good reason to refuse to use a MS account to login to your own machine, because it ceases to become your machine anymore. It pisses me off that MS tried very hard to hide the local login functionality with Win 8.1, even resorting to trickery.

The amount of space offered by OneDrive is very small unless you have a paid subscription. It's true that Store Apps and desktop settings follow you around in some but not all cases, but most people who engage in normal use of Windows 8.x just won't have many Modern-Style apps/ Furthermore, most modern-style apps have practically no internal configuration or preferences, so the time savings vs. manually downloading them from the store is usually pretty minimal.
You can get all the benefits of OneDrive with any cloud storage service.

I prefer to use a VPN (try LogMeIn Hamachi if you don't know what you're doing) plus an RDP client to provide full access to my personal machines, and I share music, photos and videos through Plex, which is particularly handy since anyone viewing my shared content cannot copy it out of my library.